The following was translated from Wilibald Gurlitt’s Michael Praetorius (Creuzbergensis): Sein Leben und Seine Werke (Michael Praetorius [of Creuzburg]: His Life and His Works) (Leipzig: Druck von Breitkopf & Härtel, 1915), p. 10-13. This is the fourth in a series of posts on Michael Praetorius.

For more on the author, click here. For more on this particular work of the author, read the Translator’s Preface here.

This section picks up after Michael Schulteis, Michael Praetorius’ father, has either obtained his Bachelor’s degree from, or dropped out of, the University of Wittenberg and has been called to teach at the Latin grammar school in Torgau around 1534, at about age 19.

Gurlitt takes much of what follows from Section 2, Part 4 of Karl Pallas’ Die Registraturen der Kirchenvisitationen im ehemals sächsischen Kurkreise (The Registries of the Church Visitations in Former Electoral Saxony) (Halle: Druck und Verlag von Otto Hendel, 1911), which is Volume 41 of the series Geschichtsquellen der Provinz Sachsen und angrenzender Gebiete (Historical Sources from the Province of Saxony and Neighboring Regions), published by the Historical Commission for the Province of Saxony and the Duchy of Anhalt. I added a couple sentences from this source that Gurlitt did not include because, based on Endnote 10, the extra sentences perhaps lend further insight into Schulteis’ life in Torgau.

Michael Schulteis: Educational Setting in Torgau

In contrast to Wittenberg, which is regarded as the “mother of the Reformation,” Torgau is rightly called the “wet nurse of the Reformation.” More than anything else, the remarkable effectiveness of the Torgau grammar school1 seems to justify this reputation. After Wittenberg, it was the best and most sought-after school in electoral Saxony, and the Reformers took particular satisfaction in it. Luther became thoroughly acquainted with it on his first church visitation to Torgau in April, 1529, and afterwards praised it again and again as an ideal model school. He was also on friendly terms with many of its teachers. In August, 1531, Melanchthon reorganized it at the request of the Torgau council.2 Information about the setup of the school in which Michael Schulteis began his career can already be found in the visitation minutes of 1529. They essentially agree with the well-known model plan for a three-level Latin school which was appended as the final chapter to the Instructions for the Visitors of the Parish Pastors in Electoral Saxony (Wittenberg, 1528).3

Since we have no useable presentation of Torgau’s city history pertaining to the Reformation era, permit me to compile some excerpts from the “Special articles submitted to the council in Torgau” (March 22, 1534)4 that are significant for understanding Schulteis’ teaching years in Torgau. They are arranged according to the following areas:

1) Church: “The affairs of this place pertaining to the doctrine and life of the pastor [Gabriel Zwilling (Didymus)], the chaplain, and the other church and school officers – God be praised – have been found to be in order and absent of all dissension and discord.” The good relationship between the first Protestant clergymen and teachers in Torgau is also confirmed by a note in the diary of Summer, Torgau’s city physician and a contemporary of Luther: “There was utmost harmony among them; no disagreement was ever heard among them. They were each tolerant of each other and compliant with each other.”5

“The council has also consented that henceforth the pastor shall be the one to choose which chaplains, schoolmasters, schoolmaster’s assistants, sacristans, and students who have studied in Wittenberg for several years should be obtained for service in this city. He shall do so according to necessity, not choosing the ones to whom he is partial, but those who are the most qualified, always keeping in mind that the schoolmaster’s assistants should be people who will render due obedience to the schoolmaster. The pastor and council shall also have the authority to dismiss the deacons and other church and school officers if there is just cause, and to make other fitting Christian arrangements in religious matters… Since it has also been determined that another deacon is urgently needed on account of the large number of people [and the influx of nonresidents occasioned by the temporary residence of the court]6 and for many other pressing reasons, the Visitors have also prescribed another deacon at the request issued by the council and the congregation. He shall render the same obedience to the pastor that is required of the other two deacons, and shall serve by proclaiming God’s word clearly, purely, and without error, unmixed with the word of man or idle talk; by administering both sacraments in a Christian manner, in conformity with God’s word and the prescription of the visitation; by conducting services; and by visiting and comforting the sick on the basis of God’s word. In return his annual recompense shall be: 40 florins, 1 bucket of grain,* 5 cords of wood, and 1 bushel of salt – all from the general fund.” (Michael Schulteis took over this newly created position on November 19, 1539.)

“Also henceforth, on the evening of every high festival and on the actual festival day, a vesper service shall be held in which a Christian sermon about that particular festival shall be delivered in the presence of all the students, until such time in the future as the vesper service and sermon can also be prepared every Saturday at the convenience of the people. When the third deacon is taken on, an attempt may be made to see whether a short vesper service and sermon might be held every Saturday, and especially the Small Catechism for the youth and others. As for the evening sermon on workdays during the week, it is reasonable to discontinue it once again, considering that the morning sermon is sufficient, and so that the ministers of God’s word are not loaded down with too much. Also, the sermons, both on festivals and Sundays and on workdays and normal days, should not be drawn out for too long.”

2) School: “Henceforth there shall be four paid school officers, until further notice and amendment, namely the schoolmaster [Benedikt Flemming (served 1528-1539)]7 and three bachelors. In addition, there shall be a cantor [Johann Walther, beginning in 1534]8 and custodian for our dear women. Until the general fund has greater resources, the following bachelors and other church and school officers shall in the meantime be given the annual raise hereafter specified: Bachelor Markus [Crodel; became schoolmaster in the place of B. Flemming in 1539] – 10 florins; Bachelor Georg [Wachsrink] – 10 florins; Bachelor Michael [Schulteis]9 – 10 florins. Also in the meantime, until the general fund is healthier, 10 florins shall be bestowed and given to the organist every year as his honorarium, and 1 florin to the bellows operator every quarter… In return the aforementioned church and school officers shall also, in exchange for such improvement, attend to all the aspects of their ministry [Diensts] all the more diligently, considering that they have such an important ministry. … Since also the schoolmaster and his assistants have lived at the school up until now (some of them along with their wives), the Visitors have made provision, in order to prevent any sort of impropriety, that henceforth none of the school officers shall ever again live at the school along with his wife and children. However, one of these bachelors, if he has no wife, may have living space at the school, together with the nonresident students.10 And the bachelor who lives at the school shall take good care of the fire, the windows, and the boys who live with him at the school, so that the school does not fall into ruin. The bachelor who lives at the school shall also collect the wood money and purchase wood. … Also, when necessity demands that the students be punished, the schoolmaster and his assistants shall henceforth not carry out such punishment with knocking, shoving, and undue and excessive blows, but in good moderation… In return an honorable council shall also see to it that the students render all due obedience to the schoolmaster and the bachelors…for the youth, especially in these recent, dangerous times, are very quick to seize an opportunity to disobey. … Also, since the school in Torgau – God be praised – is invested with many and learned assistants, the school officers shall accordingly apply themselves diligently to the youth, so that the poor boys who are unable to be in universities, on account of their parents’ lack of means and the lack of other people’s patronage, may learn grammar and Latin thoroughly and well in the school at low cost… The schoolmaster and his assistants shall also see to it with all diligence that the instruction takes place in simplicity, as detailed in the Visitors’ printed instructions.”

“The youth and their abilities should be exercised by reciting the comedies. This suits us well, and we know of no better place where such a performance might be put on than our city hall in the summer, and at the drinking hall in the winter, which drinking hall we have hitherto lent them for this purpose as often as they have required it and have kept the doors closed to the rabble. We are also at liberty to give the boys 1 florin for refreshment for every comedy they put on, provided that the boys also derive benefit from such performances, and that a comedy shall be performed more than just on the last day before Lent.”11

3) Library: “The council in Torgau shall also take care that the library and books in the Franciscan monastery do not get torn up, but are maintained faithfully, well, and in such a way that those who want to study and read may go there to do so. They shall also take care that this library is augmented from year to year with the best and most useful books, to be furnished by the general fund.”

4) Choir [Kantorei]:12 “Since God the Almighty has favored this city of Torgau, more than many others, with a glorious ensemble of musicians and singers, the Visitors deem that, for the people who serve in this way, it is only reasonable that a publicly funded dinner be henceforth given to compensate them [what later became the convivum musicum generale or public musical banquet], as has been done in the past. They likewise make provision that, besides this, a council should also afford such persons an advantage over others in their respective trades, as much as ever possible and feasible, in order to make them all the more willing to exercise their abilities in this Christian and honorable way, and in order to encourage others all the better in that direction, until such time as a regular yearly honorarium can be made in return for their services.”

These content-packed primary source testimonies speak for themselves, and they offer deeper insights into the educational circumstances of Torgau at that time than the paltry collection of anecdotes that Grulich cites in an attempt to characterize this period.13 All that remains for us is to become more closely acquainted with the personalities with whom the young Schulteis came into contact, both by virtue of his office and in his day-to-day life.

* German: 1 mld. Korns. I have taken “mld.” to be an abbreviation for “Mulde.”

7 Grulich, op. cit., p. 172.

8 O. Taubert, op. cit., p. 4. Note that 1534 was only when Walther began his work as cantor in the school. See further down under “4) Choir,” where the work he had already accomplished is alluded to with the phrase “glorious ensemble of musicians and singers.” – trans.

9 Cf. the thorough study by C. Knabe, Die Torgauer Visitations-Ordnung von 1529 (Torgauer Schulprogramm, 1881), p. 9f, where indeed no distinction is made between the identity of “Schulteis” and “Michael from Bunzlau,” and his arrival in Torgau is erroneously given as 1536. Notwithstanding this small mistake, the work contains valuable reports on Torgau personalities, compiled on the basis of account ledgers and council minutes. “Donat Michael” as an identification for Schulteis can hardly be debated, since only the first names are mentioned for the other two bachelors. What probably happened was that the young Schulteis, by participating in an especially memorable way in the edition of the Donat that the Torgau faculty published for their school in 1533 (cf. Karl Hartfelder, Melanchthoniana Paedagogica [Leipzig: Druck und Verlag von B. G. Teubner, 1892], p. 49f), acquired a nickname that he could not shake – “Donat Michael.” This name does not seem to correspond to a separate individual.

10 After this, Schulteis, as the last-named (and thus probably the youngest and unmarried) bachelor, may have lived “at the school.”

11 Letter from the council to the school personnel from 1534, quoted by K. Pallas, op. cit., p. 16.

The following was translated from Wilibald Gurlitt’s Michael Praetorius (Creuzbergensis): Sein Leben und Seine Werke (Michael Praetorius [of Creuzburg]: His Life and His Works) (Leipzig: Druck von Breitkopf & Härtel, 1915), p. 9-10. This is the third in a series of posts on Michael Praetorius.

For more on the author, click here. For more on this particular work of the author, read the Translator’s Preface here.

This section picks up after Michael Schulteis, Michael Praetorius’ father, has enrolled at the University of Wittenberg during the winter semester of 1528, at about age 13. Though we have no personal recollections from Schulteis about his time in Wittenberg, Gurlitt is able to put us in his shoes anyway by citing the recollections of a man who enrolled at the university on May 30, 1529, at the age of 24, Johannes Mathesius. (I was startled to discover that Mathesius’ series of sermons on Luther’s life, a sine qua non for any serious Luther biographer or Reformation historian, has not yet appeared in English.)

The bracketed [ ] interpolations in the Mathesius excerpt are Gurlitt’s, except for those that contain the original German. For the sake of translation accuracy, I consulted four editions of Mathesius’ work:

Master Johannes Mathesius, who spent his first semester at the University of Wittenberg in 1529, paints a vivid picture of student life at that time. Among other things, he relates the following from that year:

[S]ince Doctor Johann Pommer, pastor in Wittenberg, was absent at this time [Bugenhagen was in Hamburg], being regularly called upon to organize churches and schools in the land of Saxony [Lower Saxony], our Doctor [Luther] preached three or four sermons every week. In them he expounded the Sunday Gospels, the Gospel of John, and chapters 19 and 20 of the second book of Moses in a wise and Christian manner. It was also at that time, on St. James’ Day [July 25], that he beautifully applied the legends of St. Christopher to all preachers and Christian people who carry Jesus Christ in their heart and arms, guard their conscience, and help other people, and who receive nothing but ingratitude from the world and false brothers for doing so.

During this year I also heard, in the first place, the Catechism and many other comforting doctrines expounded, by Doctor Justus Jonas [theological dean from 1523-1533] in the castle [the collegiate Castle Church] and by the three deacons, Master Georg Rörer, Johann Mantel, and Master Sebastian Fröschel [in the parish church]. Now, just as the Parish Church and Castle Church were very well managed at that time, and the word of Christ was wisely taught in good harmony and produced much fruit, so also the university was held in the highest honor at that time.

From the Doctor [Luther] I heard the last 22 chapters in the prophet Isaiah expounded in the course of perhaps forty weeks. From these lectures I often returned home filled with comfort and joy [confidence].

From Mr. [Herrn] Philipp [Melanchthon], the faithful and diligent professor, I heard during this short time a portion of Cicero’s Orations and the beautiful Latin oration pro Archia. During this year I also heard him lecture on the entire dialectics [logic], which he dictated to us afresh, together with rhetoric [including homiletics]. In the morning this great man explained the epistle to the Romans; on Wednesday he lectured on honorable ethics and virtue from Aristotle’s Ethica or book of ethics. We debated or gave speeches [declamiret] on this every week. Mr. Johann Bugenhagen [who returned to Wittenberg in June of 1529] expounded the epistles to the Corinthians; Doctor Jonas expounded several Psalms. Aurogallus [Matthäus Goldhahn, d. 1543] lectured on his Hebrew grammar and Psalm 119. Master Franz [Burchart] of Weimar lectured on Greek, Tulichius [died as rector in Lüneburg in 1540] on Cicero’s De officiis, Master Vach [Balthasar Fabricius from Vacha an der Werra] on Virgil. The old Master [Johannes] Volmar lectured on the Theoricas planetarum,* Master [Jakob] Mülich on the sphere.† Master Caspar Creuziger lectured on Terence to the young students in the paedagogium at this time.‡ The private schools were excellently managed in the same way. Master Winsheim [Veit Örtel from Windsheim], Master Kilian Goldstein, Master [Veit] Amerbach, and Master Erasmus Reinhold, and soon afterwards Master [Johannes] Marcellus, Mr. Georg Maior [Major], and Master [Paul] Eber all kept their students in good discipline and diligently lectured and repeated.

There was also good peace and harmony between students and townspeople. …

… We all lived and sang in our choir [hatten unser Canterey] with joy and in good spirits, in love and friendship. Moreover, from the lips of the old men, for whom we juveniles had an honorable awe and reverence, fell many good speeches and stories which I diligently retained. And because it was precisely Mr. Philipp who lectured on dialectics, we had very good discussions consisting of questions and instruction in these and other lectures. There was also no excessive or immature eating, drinking, or entertainment; everyone tended to his studies for which he had come to the place…1

These captivating recollections were written down in the years 1562-1564. Many a detail in them would seem distorted by the passage of time, which tends to make the past more glorious. However, the great and significant thing that was alive in Wittenberg at that time still sounds out clearly on every side of this small portrait of time, which gives an accurate glimpse into the quiet sphere of the inner life of this great time, into the world which a young Wittenberg student experienced in those days, and into the wealth of stimuli and the abundance of important personalities whom he encountered on a daily basis and who filled his soul with sublime happiness.

In these incomparable surroundings, united by uniform convictions and common goals, Michael Schulteis also laid the foundation of his comprehensive education, which would set him apart from so many of his brothers in the ministry in the varied struggles of his life.

We first have to imagine the young Schulteis, occupied with the subjects of the trivium, as a student in one of those numerous Wittenberg “private schools,” which had arisen in the home of various professors according to Melanchthon’s standard. It is uncertain how long this course of study lasted for Schulteis. It is also uncertain when he obtained in Wittenberg the lowest academic degree, the honor of a Bachelor of Arts – or if he did at all;2 his later mention as such may have been merely a professional designation. For indeed, by March 22, 1534, he has been appointed as a Bachelor at the Latin school in Torgau; on that day he receives a pay raise of 10 florins from the council.3 He thus seems to have belonged to the teaching profession for some time already, the customary first step toward the preaching ministry. His outward circumstances were apparently quite poor, which also would have taken him away from his studies in Wittenberg prematurely.

† That is, the sphere of the heavenly bodies, since the universe was thought to be arranged in a series of revolving, concentrically arranged spherical shells in which the heavenly bodies were set in a fixed relationship. Today we would call this astronomy.

‡ Heath’s New German and English Dictionary (1939) defines Pädagogium as a “secondary school (usually a private educational institution); college; academy; cramming establishment [or cram school].” The Journal of Education, ed. Henry Barnard (Hartford, CT: F. C. Brownell, 1860), in part 2 of its “History of the University of Tübingen,” dealing with the years 1535-1652, reads: “For better preparation in the languages, two preparatory schools were adjoined to the university proper; a ‘Trivial School,’ for the rudiments [of grammar, rhetoric, and logic], and a ‘Paedagogium’ immediately preceding entrance to the university. An eminently fit person was to be made ‘Paedagogarch,’ with three masters to assist him; and they were principally to teach grammar and rhetoric; to read with their pupils Terence, Virgil, and Cicero’s epistles; to make them compose a poem (carmen) and an epistle (epistolam); to instruct them in music, both simple and figured, and to sing with them, sometimes after meals, a motet or a psalm” (p. 70). A footnote says that the Paedagogium in Tübingen lasted until the Thirty Years’ War. It appears that the University of Wittenberg had a somewhat similar arrangement.

2 Cf. Jul. Köstlin, Die Baccalaurei und Magistri der Wittenb. philosoph. Fakultät 1518-1537 (Halle, 1888), p. 14, where the conferrals from the years 1525-1532 are missing, with the note (fn. 4): “There seem to have been no conferrals in these years, partially due to the disturbances occasioned by Carlstadt and partially due to plague.”

The following was translated from Wilibald Gurlitt’s Michael Praetorius (Creuzbergensis): Sein Leben und Seine Werke (Michael Praetorius [of Creuzburg]: His Life and His Works) (Leipzig: Druck von Breitkopf & Härtel, 1915), p. 7-9. This is the second in a series of posts on Michael Praetorius.

For more on the author, click here. For more on this particular work of the author, read the Translator’s Preface here.

As you will see, not much can be said about the youth of Michael Schulteis, Michael Praetorius’ father, until he enrolled at the University of Wittenberg in 1528. However, Gurlitt does describe the intellectual and spiritual mood of Schulteis’ hometown during his youth, as well as make some interesting conjectures about Schulteis’ ancestry.

Michael Schulteis: Youth in Bunzlau

Michael Schulteis was born around 1515 in Bunzlau am Bober.1* We do not have any authoritatively certified reports about his early childhood and upbringing, the life of his parents, or the origin of his family. The Bunzlau City Archives are unorganized and unfit for research at present,2 and do not seem to preserve any records from the first quarter of the 16th century.3 The city’s church records only go back to 1740.4 Even the detailed chronicle of Bunzlau by E. Wernicke, which carefully records every accessible detail of the city’s history, does not offer any reliable clues as to the Schulteis family history. Therefore we can only offer conjectures about the ancestry of Michael Schulteis.

It is plausible that he is connected with the long-established Scholtz family that was especially distinguished in the city’s history at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries,5 although their Silesian descendants in the 17th century usually latinized their name as Scultetus, not Praetorius.6 This postulation seems to be supported by the expressly used name “M. Scholtz” in a call letter (Berufungsschreiben) dated July 30, 1544, issued by the council in Haynau, which was well acquainted with the civil circumstances in nearby Bunzlau.7

Among the members of the Scholtz family who are referred to in the first two decades of the 16th century in Wernicke’s chronicle, four of them earned the right to work as masters in the guild of furriers and cloth-workers in Bunzlau: Georg, Jakob and two men both named Hans.8 Wernicke also identifies three other men named Scholtz – Peter, Wolfgang, and Gregor, the neglected sons of the hereditary patron (Erbvogt) Anselm Scholtz9 – but as unprincipled men they are out of the question. Plus, most of the important preaching personalities of the old Protestant church who did not merely “join the cause of the gospel for the sake of the belly” came precisely from the manual laboring class of the cities that were on the rise.10 It seems best, then, to look for the Schulteis forefather (Michael Praetorius’ grandfather) among the Scholtzes in Bunzlau who were master ferriers and cloth-workers. Perhaps in the future, when the Bunzlau archives are rendered accessible for once, we can still hope to find some documentary reports about the Schulteis family. Given the current state of affairs, these conjectures will have to suffice.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, the city of Bunzlau was known far and wide as the homeland of famous Silesians, especially poets,11 though certainly the singular Martin Opitz alone carried its name throughout the world. Thus Andreas Tscherning, likewise a native of Bunzlau and, after Opitz, probably the best among the city’s poetic greats,12 sang about his hometown in his Spring of German Poems (Deutscher Gedichte Frühling) (1642):

… Who does not know firsthand
That the town, despite its size, is still a fatherland
Of such distinguished people, who multiply its name?13

For the small city on the Bober, whose cultivation and prosperity have been much extolled,14 it was a significant day when, two weeks after the public victory of the Protestant cause cause in Breslau, Jakob Süssenbach, a former student of the Wittenberg university, delivered the first evangelical sermon in the Bunzlau parish church on May 8, 1524.15 This also marked the beginning of a new, truly productive era for the city. Reformation-friendly currents had probably been spread along the Bober, just as elsewhere in Silesia, before Luther’s conscience-liberating doctrine made its public entrance. But how impressively the Reformer’s personal action of conviction was perceived as a furthering of freedom and of true progress of the culture in precisely this city as well – a poem of Tscherning still expresses that in unmistakable terms a hundred years later when the poet celebrates Luther as the “ancestor (Ahnen)” of Bunzlau’s intellectual greatness.16 Accordingly the resistance that the introduction of the new doctrine experienced in the churches of Bunzlau was only a remarkably feeble one. The last Catholic priest of the city, Master Johannes, was no man of determined opposition; there was a saying about him among the common folk: “Nice and easy, just like the priest in Bunzel (Bunzlau).”17

Only the discussions with the clergy and monks of Bunzlau’s Dominican cloister took on violent forms. These often turned into ugly, spiteful, public bickerings, whose vulgar crudeness was ill suited to inspire a high opinion of the condition of Catholic spirituality in the religiously inclined Schulteis boy, who witnessed these coarse scenes as some of the earliest reminiscences of his youth. On the other hand, the pastor Jakob Süssenbach, who lived in Bunzlau in close contact with the Wittenberg circle of reformers until 1532,18 may have gained influence with the boy, familiarized him with the new religious views, and perhaps personally recommended him to Wittenberg. For there, in the winter semester of 1528, Schulteis was matriculated as “Michael Schultze Boleslauien[sis] dioc[esis] Vratislauien[sis]” (Michael Schultze of Bunzlau in the Diocese of Breslau).19

Endnotes

1Boleslav in Bohemian, whence the Latin name Boleslavia (Civitas Boleslaviensis). The common folk called it der Bun(t)zel. Cf. Ewald Wernicke, Chronik der Stadt Bunzlau (1884), p. 9. The copy of the Bunzlau chronicle by Fr. Holstein mentioned on p. iv of Wernicke’s Chronik is in the possession of the Leipzig University Library (Cod. Ms. 1567). It does not contain any essential reports that go above and beyond Wernicke’s thorough work.

Inaugural dissertation
for the attainment of the doctor’s degree
of the philosophical faculty
of the University of Leipzig

Submitted by Wilibald Gurlitt
of Dresden

The inside of the title page reads:

Accepted by the philosophical-historical department on the basis of the recommendation of Mr. Riemann and Mr. Köster.
Leipzig: May 5, 1914. Pro-Chancellor: Kirchner.

On November 11, 1914, in consideration of the situation of the candidate, who was wounded near Sompuis on September 9 as Lieutenant of the Reserve in the 1st (Personal) Grenadier Regiment no. 100 and taken captive by the French on September 10, the philosophical faculty resolved to make an exception and disregard the stipulation of §15, Section 4 of the Conferral Manual (Promotionsordnung), namely that the delivered dissertation is to be printed in its entirety. In keeping with this resolution, only the first few chapters of the dissertation have been printed here. The entire dissertation will appear in the same publication, as soon as the circumstances make this possible.

The next page reads:

Introduction:

The life of Michael Schulteis,
father of Michael Praetorius Creuzbergensis,
up until his move to Creuzburg an der Werra

The translation that follows is the introduction in this Introduction.

In reading it, it will not be difficult for you to detect that this work was prepared as a doctoral dissertation. Even with my efforts at simplification, the sentences remain incredibly complex. Gurlitt is unleashing the full force of his university education and scholarship. However, the language is not nearly so difficult as to be insurmountable for the interested reader.

You can read an introduction to this series, as well as a brief autobiography of the author, here. Numbered endnotes are original; those designated with a symbol are the translator’s.

May God lead us to see in this history, as in all others, his powerful, guiding, and gracious hand, working everything out for the good of his redeemed children and the advancement of his kingdom.

Michael Schulteis: Historical Background

The province of Silesia, which did not enjoy imperial immediacy but belonged to the Bohemian Crown, was affected very powerfully and early on by the movement of the German Reformation. Most powerfully and earliest affected was the province’s capital city, Breslau, the Bohemian Wratislav.*

One of the oldest and most important economic arteries of middle Germany was the inland trade route which ran from Poland through Breslau, Görlitz, Leipzig, Erfurt, and Eisenach, then southward to Frankfurt am Main, and northward through Kassel to the Rhine. Through this trade route, Silesia was directly linked to the motherland of the Reformation in the 16th century. The lively traffic on this great trade route quickly familiarized the cities along the route with the events in Saxony that were changing the course of history, and it kept them thoroughly informed of their development. Thus Nikolaus Pol1 is already quite animated in his contemporary annual chronicles of the city of Breslau as he recounts how the first Reformation writings from Wittenberg and Leipzig had “been sent to Breslau for some fellows who were locked up in the prison in Schweidnitz [die im Schweidnitzer Keller gesessen], which they in turn had shared with other inhabitants, so that in short time the whole city has been filled with God’s word.”2

Already in 1519 Luther’s Resolutions on the propositions of the Leipzig Disputation, in which the Reformer for the first time set forth the principles of his doctrine and his plan of action in extensive detail,3 were reprinted in the Silesian capital city.4 The bonds of friendship that had been tied between Luther and Johann Thurzo, Bishop of Breslau, who even had one of his canons study in Wittenberg,5 were destroyed by the sudden death of this “best bishop of the century,” as Luther called him. Although the successor to the bishopric of Breslau, Jakob von Salza, was no friend of the Wittenberger’s doctrines, he no longer had any deciding influence on Breslau’s religious development due to the growing reformatory mood in the city. The clergyman repeatedly feared that the people were going to rise up against him.

Finally, on May 20, 1523, the city council publicly revealed the sympathies for the Reformation that they had already cherished in secret for a long time by calling Johann Hess, the eventual reformer of Silesia, to St. Mary Magdalene Church as the first evangelical preacher of the city.6 Hess was Thurzo’s secretary at one time and was a close friend and student of Melanchthon. Since the bishop refused to install him, the council invested him with the pastorate on their own authority. It later justified this bold move, which would become typical for Silesia, with the words: “So long as we are building the churches and schools ourselves, it is to our way of thinking not unreasonable that we also choose pastors and schoolmasters ourselves.”7 One year later Johann Hess held his influential Breslau Disputation on the principles of the evangelical doctrine, which sealed the victory of Reformation ideals in Silesia. By the following year Protestantism had become so indigenous to Breslau’s pulpits that the publisher Adam Dyon, who had immigrated from Nürnberg, obviated a need felt everywhere when he published the first evangelical hymnal for Silesia, including Luther’s famous hymnal preface, on the Wednesday after Easter in 1525.8 Shortly before this the Reformation in Silesia had been absolutely diffused in every direction when the following decree was issued at the Diet at Grottkau by the secular princes and collective estates of the province in their unanimously passed requirement regarding spirituality: “That the holy gospel be preached freely and unhindered according to the meaning of Holy Scripture, and that people freely conform to the same, irrespective of all men.”9

From Breslau the movement then quickly spread even to the remotest districts of the province.

The already mentioned report of Pol, the chronicler of Breslau, about the secret literary circulation of reformatory views also shows the peculiar character of the Silesian Reformation movement in general. No violent outward struggles were needed here in order to help Protestantism’s new religious evaluation (Wertgebung) and view of life to reach a breakthrough. The intense convulsions of the social and political scene, which the Protestant world of ideas brought along elsewhere when it penetrated into the ecclesiastical system of the Middle Ages, are absent here. Quietly, with virtually no opposition, in a relatively peaceable, continually progressing development of ecclesiastical-social conditions, Protestantism took over the powerful churches of Breslau and drew the ever expanding and increasingly influential circles of its mastery into Silesia.

As he considered this extraordinary course of events in Breslau, Luther wrote to his most intimate friend George Spalatin on February 1, 1524: “All of this has happened in order that the stupid princes and bishops may see for once that it is not Luther, a man of no consequence, who is doing these things and being condemned by them, but the omnipotent Christ – if they were but worthy to see it.”10

Over against Luther’s religious take on the development of the Silesian Reformation, suitable for his time, general historical factors can be adduced by which the brilliant unfolding of the Protestant spirit in Silesia is conducted.† Permit me to call special attention to the factors important for understanding the Silesian Reformation.

Between the protecting walls of the commercial cities in Silesia, new and popular existential ideals of an ethical and religious nature had arisen in the aspiring industrial associations of civil society (the guild system, or Zunftverfassung). After the spiritual-religious interests had been separated from the secular-political interests, the individualization of piety and of the spiritual life in general on the one hand, and the capitalism emerging from the growing commercial mindset of the blossoming cities on the other, combined to produce an independence of the urban culture in Silesia that was ahead of its time. Just as in ecclesiastical matters the magistrates of the cities acted in opposition to the bishopric, so also the princes of the province acted in opposition to the Bohemian Crown, to which they belonged, just as independently and as willfully as the German imperial estates had in opposition to Charles V. How else would it have been possible for cities and princes to continue openly disobeying a royal prohibition as strict as the one issued at Christmas of 1521 to the Silesian estates, forbidding Luther’s doctrine and the sale of his writings?11

Out of this opposition of the cities and princes to the ruling crown of the province grew independent centers of economic prosperity and spiritual cultivation. As happened everywhere, these centers furthered the dissolution of the Middle Age culture of Christian unity wherever they sprang up.

Connected to the large-scale commercial trade and robust education in the province are also the manifold personal connections of the academic youth and great historical personalities of Silesia with the Wittenberg circle of reformers, which were maintained in active correspondence. Traveling merchants, booksellers, letter carriers (the so-called tabellarii), military personnel, intimate friends, students, and all kinds of vagrants brought the “news (Kunde)” and “all the latest (neuen Zeitungen)” from Wittenberg – for which Melanchthon was the spiritual point of contact – to Breslau, and vice versa. Both cities maintained a lively, mutual news exchange.12 And how many Silesian students have been recommended to the University of Wittenberg by clergy and laity, by a Johann Hess, Valentin Trotzendorf, Ambrosius Moiban, Crato von Krafthein, and others! On the other hand, how little Johann Hess might have accomplished – fainthearted man that he was, repeatedly despairing of his reformatory calling – if not for the strong and faithful support that he enjoyed in the friendship of the Wittenberg reformers!

However, the most significant factor at work in this reformatory movement is and remains, naturally, the specific religious one. This preceded all the others and made the deepest impact.

The religious culture of Silesia in the 16th century must be understood on the basis of its historical connection with the culture of both Slavic-Hussite Bohemia and Germanic-Lutheran Saxony. For, as commanding and powerful as Luther’s influence on the development of Silesia’s religiosity was, the religious forces that paved his way and supported him cannot be underestimated. These forces had worked themselves out in the form of a pre-reformatory national church body in Bohemia during the popular disturbances of the Hussite movement, and these forces continued to exert a powerful effect for a long time afterward, for example, in the German Huss-drama and chiefly in the German hymns of the Bohemian Brethren. Silesia’s close religious connection to Saxony and Bohemia clearly manifests itself in the life story of Michael Weisse, the most influential among the hymn writers of the Bohemian Brethren.13 We also know what value Luther himself attached to the Bohemian Brethren’s doctrine of faith,14 and how he constantly kept abreast of the events taking place in Silesia.15

But now, just as the political history of Silesia seems to govern a general inclination toward progressive Germanization of the province, so also in the history of Silesian religiosity an unmistakable receding of Slavic principles presents itself. Just as Luther far outgrew John Huss; just as the mother university of Prague, at one time the gathering place for all that was learned in Silesia, increasingly lost its power of attraction over against the rapidly blossoming city of Wittenberg; so it is evident everywhere that Bohemia in the first quarter of the 16th century is relinquishing its predominance in Silesia to Saxony, and during this change the startling rise of the Silesian culture takes root in the period that follows. Decisive for this change are the two victories of the Germanic-Protestant spirit in Silesia that were won without a fight: that of Johann Hess over the royal and episcopal representatives at the Breslau Disputation (April 20, 1524), and that of the Hapsburg archduke Ferdinand over William duke of Bavaria as the successor of King Ludwig when the new king of Bohemia was chosen (October 23, 1526).

The significance of Silesia in the history of German spirituality is founded in this tendency toward the Germanic-Protestant culture, and in the cooperation afforded by religious subjectivity and the national political power struggle.

It was in the midst of this great spiritual movement in Silesia that Michael Schulteis (Schultheiss16 = Latin: praetor), the father of Michael Praetorius Creuzbergensis (M. P. C.17), grew up.

Endnotes

* Today this is the Polish city Wrocław.

1 Cf. L. v. Ranke, Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation, 8th ed. (Leipzig, 1909), 2:325, note 1. Ranke gives considerable attention to the history of the Reformation in Silesia, op. cit., 2:259ff and 2:324ff. He has not pursued the influence of religious circumstances on the shaping of the political history of Silesia, although he expressly acknowledges it as “a very important question, which merited even closer attention” (op. cit., 2:296).

† With the prepositional phrase “Over against Luther’s religious take” and the adjectival phrase “suitable for his time,” Gurlitt seems subtly to dismiss Luther’s analysis and belittle the religiosity of the times in which he lived. Luther’s analysis is admittedly simplistic; God was certainly using many other social, political, economic, and religious factors to bring about the victory of the Reformation in Silesia. But these two approaches are hardly contradictory. Luther’s analysis was correct.

15Ibid., 1:611f. Otto Schmid’s study, Die böhmische Altmeisterschule Czernohorskys (Leipzig, 1901), attempts to follow Bohemia’s influence on the development of music up until the period of Viennese classicism.

16 Apart from these two spellings, which are the most frequently used, the following deviations also occur: Schuldtheiss, Schultheis, Schultes, Schultis, Schultze, Schulze, Schultz, and Scholtz.

17 The letter C in this initialism has nothing to do with Capellmeister (court music director).

2017, the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation, is fast approaching. I have been giving some thought as to how Red Brick Parsonage might contribute to the celebration, and I think I have hit upon the answer.

In 1915 Breitkopf and Härtel of Leipzig printed the introduction and first two chapters of Wilibald Gurlitt’s inaugural dissertation on Michael Praetorius of Creuzburg. That material alone took up 138 pages, and does not include the final two chapters which are available in manuscript and galley-proofs both in the University of Freiburg Archives and in the Duke August Library in Wolfenbüttel, the city where Praetorius passed away.

On page 139 of the dissertation, Gurlitt included a brief autobiography, detailing his life from the date of his birth up to the year he delivered the dissertation. If you wish to read more about Gurlitt’s life, you can check out the English or German Wikipedia articles on him. You can see a picture of his father here, and of the man himself here.

God willing, this translation of Gurlitt’s autobiography will be the preface to a series of posts which, in their sum total, will provide you with a complete translation of Gurlitt’s defining work on the great Lutheran composer and musicologist, Michael Praetorius. It is certainly fitting that, as we prepare to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation, we become better acquainted with Praetorius and his work. But in studying the origins of Praetorius, we will by necessity also acquaint ourselves with the history and development of the Lutheran Reformation itself.

God grant that this journey may be a blessed one, and may lead us to marvel all the more at our omnipotent God and his magnificent and merciful works.

Autobiography of Wilibald Gurlitt (1914)

I, Wilibald Gurlitt, was born on March 1, 1889, in Dresden to the university professor Cornelius Gurlitt. I am of Evangelical Lutheran confession. In Dresden I attended the St. Anne Semi-Classical Secondary School (Annenrealgymnasium)1 and passed the maturity examination (Reifeprüfung)2 in Easter of 1908. I studied at the Universities of Heidelberg and Leipzig, predominantly philosophy and the history of civilization at first, but later chiefly music science, in particular the history of music in the 16th and 17th centuries.

I began my practical training in music during my schooling in Dresden as a private student of Erdmann Warwas (violin) and Clemens Braun (theory), continued it in Heidelberg with Professor Philipp Wolfrum (counterpoint) and Karl Hasse (organ), and later on my own. For lasting artistic advancement I owe a debt of thanks to Professor Karl Straube, organist at the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig.

From April 1, 1909, to March 31, 1910, I fulfilled my compulsory military service in the 1st (Personal) Grenadier Regiment no. 100 in Dresden, and also attended evening lectures at the University of Technology (Technische Hochschule) there during the winter semester of 1909-1910. Apart from the lectures of my father, the artistic (geisteswissenschaftliche) method of Professor Oskar Walzel fostered my development above all.

During the summer semester of 1911 the graduate assistant position in the collegium musicum in Leipzig was entrusted to me, in which I have occupied myself both with the arrangement and study of obscure music of the 17th century and as a violinist.

From April to October of 1912, having been granted a leave of absence by the university, I undertook a rather extensive study trip in order to gather material for my music history thesis. For this purpose I spent considerable time in the archives and libraries of the cities of Berlin, Gotha, Weimar, Wolfenbüttel, Braunschweig, Helmstedt, Halberstadt, Hannover, and Hamburg.

Of my teachers at the University of Leipzig, I am especially grateful to Professors Hauck, Köster, Lamprecht, Spranger, Volkelt, Witkowski, and Wundt, and to the independent lecturer (Privatdozenten)3 Dr. Schering, whose graduate assistant position I occupied during the winter semester of 1911-1912.

Finally, I have Professor Dr. Hugo Riemann to thank for what I am today.

Endnotes

1 A nine-years’-course-school teaching Latin but not Greek.

2 The maturity examination entitled the successful candidate to matriculate without any further test at any German university.

3 A distinguished, but unsalaried lecturer at a university who receives only the students’ fees.